Time after time

As of late, I am trying to be a more optimistic person. How is it going, you ask? How much time do you have?

So, I woke up this morning determined to take care of financial aid for the classes I have to take throughout the next year-and-a-half. I see the award money right in front of me (in standard form on the computer screen. FSU decided to show me something I am not eligible to receive. I have to be seeking a degree, the young voice said into the receiver. Oh....

Do I want another degree? I just don't know. To get one in education means I am going to be in the industry for the long hull. My lack of excitement and chilly bumps and energy that comes from this revelation worries me.

Does God want me to be a teacher (gulp) forever? Am I strong enough? Passionate enough? Faithful enough?

And what about writing books that interest struggling readers, helping organizations in need market their awesome cause, making movies that inspire people to do more than want, want, want - other sights I believe God has affectionately before me?

"Wait, wait, wait," I say to myself. "Waiting on the Lord," says my friend Evie's Facebook status to me. These are all questions I really, really have to bring to prayer, for more than just a minute every few days...

So I gather myself. I move forward, on to something new.

One book gathering dust on my nightstand is a GRE Vocabulary Flashcard Book. Long ago, after studying the first 10 A words over and over again, three this night, one the next and so on, I recognized that studying in bed is ineffective, but I never moved the book. Until today. The dining room table became my desk. Notebook and pen in hand, I began to write the GRE word and its synonyms on pages labeled NOUN, VERB and ADJECTIVE. On and on I went, sad I didn't remember them from osmosis sometime last year but entertained by the
easy assignment I had given myself.

Then, I recalled what I read in my current professional development book about vocabulary retention. Assigning more than 5-8 words at a time, especially when they aren't being used in every day language, is an ineffective model that students with appreciate for the continuity and ease of completion, but not learn a dang thing from. Oh. Right. I was at 20-something words. Sure enough, I had to re-read many of the terms multiple times for understanding.

Staying positive, I did not give up. Instead, I constructed a few complex little paragraphs about a simple boy's sweet tooth. Looking it over, I smiled, for I had used all 20-something words creatively and even thought about making these little stories for all the words, illustrating them and publishing them to the Web to help other folk who can't afford Kaplan courses -

Gasp! "Hold on Kim," I say to myself. "Again, too ambitious a whim," my close friends would say to me. These would be nice, but unrealistic, for my cartooning skills are only fair and my technology know-how is fairly weak. If this is really, really to happen, it will come to me in prayer, for more than a minute, every few days...

So I gather myself. I move forward, on to something new.

Sweet tooth. Hunger! That's it! Pregnant me just be hungry, which is making me emotional and loony, so it is time for my two-hour treat. What will I eat? No sugar, no, or else I will lose my enthusiasm to the dentist appointment I have been meaning to make, but haven't, because I don't know where my dental insurance information disappeared to. My mind drifts to the cinnamon sugar Auntie Anne's Pretzel I shared with a girlfriend yesterday. No! I will eat lunch, since it is just a little earlier than lunchtime.

As I heat up leftover casserole (the only food I enjoy eating as a leftover) I decide to make some pretzels for myself and a dinner date James and I have tonight. Offering food, gifts, compliments and other happinesses to people always keeps my chin up. So, I put all the ingredients together in a glorious gadget, a bread maker. Won't take long right?

Cripes! 90 minutes?! Recipe books should post the time it takes, just as universities should allow anyone who qualifies for financial aid to be eligible to receive it! Well, I kill some flies, play with the dog, try decoding the city's Metro Ride Guide....before I know it - beepbeepbeep!

I take the dough out of the pan and it sticks to my hand. I did not know, nor was I told, that even pretzel dough has two kneading cycles. The dough, which has now be punctured and scraped, falls back into the pan, where I learn it will rest for another 90 minutes, after I dig through to find the metal kneader and press start.

"Please God," I say out loud, "Don't let this seemingly simple task, too, fall apart!" My hands fall to my sides, helpless and my tear ducts begin to open.

I can't gather myself. I can't move on again to fail. So I will try nothing new... but what then will I do next to pass the day?

Of course, all along this few-hour journey that seemed WAY too tasking, annoying even, I failed to see that God's doors have been open all along, waiting for the magic word, "Yes."

Yes, Lord, I will wait on you, as your servant.

Loving Creator, forgive me for twisting the meaning of waiting on with waiting for. You have no intention to be a puppeteer who moves us through the doors of prayer, hope and virtue. Nor will you come to us who have yet to accept the invitation. We must be willing to get there ourselves - I must be willing - whether on tiptoes, a giant leap or both.

Here I am, Good Shepard, packing on the prayers I "need" to say, even trying to tell myself what I "need" to hear from you, but embracing not this time I have to spend with You in the comfort of my home, in the intimacy of ME time. Help me to drop everything and enter prayer (DEEP - oooh, and thanks for the new acronym for my students) each moment I think of prayer, rather than sticking it on a nightstand with the intention of sharing it later, for You are worth everything! Your smile is the very optimism I seek!

Thanks be to You, Divine Truth, for building my integrity (What and who AM i going to be as I continue to grow up), for igniting my imagination (elitist vocabulary brought down to earth in comic-strip stories) and for sticking with me (like premature pretzel dough) through these grossly trivial matters of today, and those sure to arise tomorrow.

Oh, the infinite ways You enable us to recover from hardship and know love! Gosh, I haven't yet a clue!

And so, here I rest, ungathered, unmoved,but once again, all new....